Former Microsoft Chief Says It’s RIP For The PC

March 8, 2012

Jedidiah Becker for RedOrbit.com

Once at the helm of one of the largest most successful corporations the world has ever seen, Bill Gates´ successor as Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie believes it´s time to start writing obituaries for the traditional personal computer, and perhaps for Microsoft as well.

As increasingly high-tech smartphones and tablets slowly supplant the role of the traditional computer in the lives of consumers, Ozzie says that Microsoft has largely failed to keep ahead of the curve.

While tech-industry commentators continue to naval gaze about whether we´ve transitioned into a “post-PC world,” the 56-year-old programmer says there´s simply no question

“Why are we arguing? Of course we are in a post-PC world,” he said at a Seattle tech conference this week.

“That doesn´t mean the PC dies, that just means that the scenarios that we use them in, we stop referring to them as PCs, we refer to them as other things.”

The conference talk was the first time Ozzie has made public comments since abruptly leaving Microsoft in 2010.

Already a living legend in technophilic circles, Mr. Ozzie spearheaded Microsoft´s Azure project, the company´s first trail-blazing foray into the world of ℠cloud´ computing.

Though Ozzie says he was proud of the role he played at Microsoft and noted that the mega-corporation has instituted numerous positive changes in the past several years, he nonetheless believes that the company´s future largely hinges on the success of Windows 8.

Still recoiling from the fantastic failure of Windows Vista, the almost universally denounced successor of Windows XP, the company´s new operating system is intended for use on low-powered tablets as well as PCs.

“If Windows 8 shifts in a form that people really want to buy the product, the company will have a great future,” said Ozzie.

“In any industry, if people look at their own needs, and look at the products and say, ℠I understand why I had it then, and I want something different´, they will not have as good a future. It´s too soon to tell.”